Geoff Jones

Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

Category: New Zealand

First Great Walk

Tomorrow I try my first New Zealand Great Walk it’s the Tongariro Northern Circuit and goes around two active volcanoes Mt Tongariro and Mt Ngauruhoe. What makes it different for me is that I have to take all my food & possible water for two nights & three days. I’ve booked both the Oturere Hut and Walhohonu hut and taxi service to take me to Mangatepopo and collect me from the Whakapapa Village Centre

The weather forecast is looking OKish although there are certainly high winds. I don’t intend on going to the summit’s so hopefully should be OK.

I’ve downloaded the relevant New Zealand Topo50 maps into the Viewranger app and will be taking a spare battery.

Should be interesting – now to pack my bag 🙂

 

Arrival in New Zealand

I left Cambridge at 9am on Sunday the 14th October and arrived in Auckland at 2pm on Tuesday the 16th with brief stops at Dubai, Kuala Lumpur & Melbourne on the way. Thats 43 hours  straight without any proper sleep.

First job in Auckland was to try and get my D550 camera fixed as it went totally dead on the way over. It wasn’t the battery and so I ended up buying a second hand body from Camera & Camera on Queen street for about $599 🙁 an expensive start to the trip. Next job was to sort out the iPhone.

text from 3
Welcome text from 3

Three had kindly sent me a text  on arrival offering internet at £6,000 a GB in New Zealand. I thought that just a tad to expensive… So I went over to Vodafone where I quickly was set up with a 2GB / 1 month Supa Prepay Broadband+ package complete with iPhone5 SIM for $50 a month a saving of ££5,960 🙂

Emily Place signAfter all that excitement it was off for a well needed sleep at Jucy’s hostel. in Emily Place 🙂